Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Milk sickness
Milk sickness, also known as tremetol vomiting, is a kind of poisoning characterized by trembling, vomiting, and severe intestinal pain that affects individuals who ingest milk, other dairy products, or meat from a cow that has fed on white snakeroot plant, which contains the poison tremetol. In animals it is known as trembles.
Although very rare today, milk sickness claimed thousands of lives among migrants to the Midwestern United States in the early 19th century, especially in frontier areas along the Ohio River Valley and its tributaries where white snakeroot was prevalent. New settlers were unfamiliar with the plant and its properties. Nancy Hanks Lincoln, the mother of Abraham Lincoln, is said to have been a victim of the poison. Nursing calves and lambs may have also died from their mothers' milk contaminated with snakeroot even when the adult cows and sheep showed no signs of poisoning. Cattle, horses, and sheep are the animals most often poisoned.
Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby is credited by the American medical community with having identified white snakeroot as the cause of the illness. Allegedly, she was told about the plant's properties by an elderly Shawnee woman she befriended, after which Bixby conducted tests to observe and document evidence.
An early sign in several animals including cattle, sheep, and guinea pigs is listlessness, which is commonly followed by significant loss of weight and pronounced trembling in the legs and muzzle. These signs often appear several hours after ingestion of white snakeroot. Abdominal pain, polydipsia, and vomiting may be noted. As the effects of the poison progress, constipation, appetite loss, weakness, and difficulty standing and/or walking are usually observed. Complete loss of muscle coordination, stupor, and/or coma precede death. Death usually occurs within two to ten days of symptom onset.
Signs unique to cattle and sheep include peculiar odors found in the breath and urine, breathing difficulties, and over-salivation. Symptoms unique to horses include depression, bloody urine, and choking. In addition to increased heart rate and jugular pulse, swelling around the thoracic inlet is also observed. Horses may also stand with their hind legs wide apart. Symptoms unique to guinea pigs include crouching with half-closed eyes and roughening of the hair. Treatment for milk sickness is typically symptom amelioration, as well as administration of laxatives, sodium lactate, glucose, or hypotonic Ringer's solution.
Human milk sickness is uncommon today in the United States. Current practices of animal husbandry generally control the pastures and feed of cattle, and the pooling of milk from many producers lowers the risk of toxins being present in dangerous amounts. The toxins are not inactivated by pasteurization. Although extremely rare, milk sickness can occur if a person drinks contaminated milk or eats dairy products gathered from a single cow or from a smaller herd that has fed on the white snakeroot plant. There is no cure, but treatment is available.[citation needed] A study has shown that tremetol is likely not the singular cause of milk sickness, and that there are likely other chemicals that, in combination with tremetol, cause milk sickness.
How could a disease, perhaps the leading cause of death and disability in the Midwest and Upper South for over two centuries, go unrecognized by the medical profession at large until 1928?
Milk sickness was suspected as a disease in the early 19th century as migrants moved into the Midwest; they first settled in areas bordering the Ohio River and its tributaries, which were their main transportation routes. They often grazed their cattle in frontier areas where white snakeroot grows; it is a member of the daisy family. They were unfamiliar with the plant and its properties. The high rate of fatalities from milk sickness made people fear it as they did the infectious diseases of cholera and yellow fever, whose causes were not understood at the time. Cattle do not graze on the plant unless other forage is not available. When pastures were scarce or in times of drought, the cattle would graze in woods, the habitat of white snakeroot. Early settlers often let their livestock roam freely in the woods.
Hub AI
Milk sickness AI simulator
(@Milk sickness_simulator)
Milk sickness
Milk sickness, also known as tremetol vomiting, is a kind of poisoning characterized by trembling, vomiting, and severe intestinal pain that affects individuals who ingest milk, other dairy products, or meat from a cow that has fed on white snakeroot plant, which contains the poison tremetol. In animals it is known as trembles.
Although very rare today, milk sickness claimed thousands of lives among migrants to the Midwestern United States in the early 19th century, especially in frontier areas along the Ohio River Valley and its tributaries where white snakeroot was prevalent. New settlers were unfamiliar with the plant and its properties. Nancy Hanks Lincoln, the mother of Abraham Lincoln, is said to have been a victim of the poison. Nursing calves and lambs may have also died from their mothers' milk contaminated with snakeroot even when the adult cows and sheep showed no signs of poisoning. Cattle, horses, and sheep are the animals most often poisoned.
Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby is credited by the American medical community with having identified white snakeroot as the cause of the illness. Allegedly, she was told about the plant's properties by an elderly Shawnee woman she befriended, after which Bixby conducted tests to observe and document evidence.
An early sign in several animals including cattle, sheep, and guinea pigs is listlessness, which is commonly followed by significant loss of weight and pronounced trembling in the legs and muzzle. These signs often appear several hours after ingestion of white snakeroot. Abdominal pain, polydipsia, and vomiting may be noted. As the effects of the poison progress, constipation, appetite loss, weakness, and difficulty standing and/or walking are usually observed. Complete loss of muscle coordination, stupor, and/or coma precede death. Death usually occurs within two to ten days of symptom onset.
Signs unique to cattle and sheep include peculiar odors found in the breath and urine, breathing difficulties, and over-salivation. Symptoms unique to horses include depression, bloody urine, and choking. In addition to increased heart rate and jugular pulse, swelling around the thoracic inlet is also observed. Horses may also stand with their hind legs wide apart. Symptoms unique to guinea pigs include crouching with half-closed eyes and roughening of the hair. Treatment for milk sickness is typically symptom amelioration, as well as administration of laxatives, sodium lactate, glucose, or hypotonic Ringer's solution.
Human milk sickness is uncommon today in the United States. Current practices of animal husbandry generally control the pastures and feed of cattle, and the pooling of milk from many producers lowers the risk of toxins being present in dangerous amounts. The toxins are not inactivated by pasteurization. Although extremely rare, milk sickness can occur if a person drinks contaminated milk or eats dairy products gathered from a single cow or from a smaller herd that has fed on the white snakeroot plant. There is no cure, but treatment is available.[citation needed] A study has shown that tremetol is likely not the singular cause of milk sickness, and that there are likely other chemicals that, in combination with tremetol, cause milk sickness.
How could a disease, perhaps the leading cause of death and disability in the Midwest and Upper South for over two centuries, go unrecognized by the medical profession at large until 1928?
Milk sickness was suspected as a disease in the early 19th century as migrants moved into the Midwest; they first settled in areas bordering the Ohio River and its tributaries, which were their main transportation routes. They often grazed their cattle in frontier areas where white snakeroot grows; it is a member of the daisy family. They were unfamiliar with the plant and its properties. The high rate of fatalities from milk sickness made people fear it as they did the infectious diseases of cholera and yellow fever, whose causes were not understood at the time. Cattle do not graze on the plant unless other forage is not available. When pastures were scarce or in times of drought, the cattle would graze in woods, the habitat of white snakeroot. Early settlers often let their livestock roam freely in the woods.